Learning From My Own Beautiful History

"Whenever you run away, whenever you lose your faith, it's just another stroke of the pen on the page. A lonely ray of hope is all that you'll need to see a beautiful history." -Plumb, Beautiful History

Anybody who knows me really well knows that I've been holding on to that lonely ray of hope for the last week. Well, I'm glad I've held on because I'm proud to report that I had a light bulb moment last night and I was able to actually use the lesson learned from the last week's reminiscence, nostalgia, and general regret. I do have a "beautiful history" and I'm doing my best to learn from every minute of it. I don't want to go into details because they're incredibly personal to me, but I can give you an idea of what went down by telling you three things:

1. There were two particular situations in my life that were frustrating me, but I was terrified to speak up about them because I felt like speaking my mind about how scared/frustrated I was would be "uncalled for." I was afraid my feelings would be met with opposition, anger, etc... In my mind I had three choices: speak up and hope for a resolution, run away from the issues and wonder what might have changed had I spoken up, or keep quiet about my feelings and be miserable.

2. I remembered a time in the past that I ran away. I remembered the way it made me feel. I remembered the hopelessness and the denial and the years of wondering why I'd not said something, why I'd not respected myself enough to realize that I had a right to hope for something more and the responsibility to approach relationships with a give-and-take mentality rather than a "how can I keep you from leaving me" mentality. That mentality killed some relationships in my life. That mentality sucks. I lived in it so hardcore that I didn't even realize I was still doing it. (I'm not just talking about romantic relationships here. Friendships can die this way too!) So after realizing that there were some places in my life that I still needed to speak up, I wanted to do just that.

3. I had some really honest and thought-provoking conversations with a couple of people in my life and I let them know how I felt. They may get angry once they've realized that I'm serious about what I had to say. They may leave. BUT - they may honor my feelings and try to meet me in the middle. Who knows? We'll see what happens. The point is, regardless of what THEY do with what I had to say, I valued myself enough to buck up and SAY IT.

Reliving the past has kicked my tail this week, but it's also taught me that I have a right and a responsibility to talk about my feelings with the people who matter to me most. Relationships in all shapes and forms are supposed to be give and take. In order to have true joy, and to live a full life, and to experience things in life the way I believe they were created to be experienced, I need to stop being afraid to take. Yesterday, I took my first step to conquering that fear and today I'm celebrating the victory.

Have you come to the realization that you are valuable enough to give your feelings a voice? Move through the fear and speak your mind if you're unhappy about something. Regardless of the outcome, the feeling of knowing that you care enough about yourself to pursue a fully joyful existence is PRICELESS. I may still be hurting, hoping, thinking too much, regretting, dreaming, kicking myself, throwing temper tantrums, crying, and dancing like a crazy person to release the pain... but I feel better today because I know I stood up for myself for once in my life, and it felt good.

(Today's photo is something I made this weekend as a way to process some emotions. it helped a great deal to cope via art instead of hurting myself! ANOTHER victory!)

Lady Gaga is a Genius (Just Dance)

"Just dance, gonna be okay. Just dance, spin that record, babe." -Lady Gaga



Thanks for all the feedback on yesterday's blog. I'm so thankful that I have the opportunity to draw from the well of wisdom and experience of my friends and readers. The words you had for me - both in the emails you sent and in the comment section of the actual blog itself - hit the nail on the head. I'm happy to report that today is a new day, and while I'm still struggling immensely, somehow I don't feel as fearful as I did yesterday. Why? Because I listened to your sage advice, I found and followed some of my own, and eventually I just DANCED!

Yesterday was definitely the worst day I've had since the death of my father back in July of 2008. Yesterday, I cried until I puked. I didn't even do that when I lost my daddy. Somehow, coming to terms with my own culpability in certain situations is just - well - heart wrenching are the only words I can think of, but that doesn't even begin to describe how much it hurts or how angry I become when I think of how much pain one bad decision on my part may have caused for another human being.

Some of you know I have struggled with self-injury since I was a child. While I've never been a cutter, I have hit myself and burned myself more times than I would care to admit. I even have some permanent knots and scarring from the old coping mechanism. Who knows exactly where the technique got its start with me? I only know that for at least two-thirds of my life, it was the only way I knew how to get rid of the rage and shame that lived inside me. Good news, though! Yesterday when I felt that extreme NEED to release the pain, I remembered that I have NEW coping techniques. I pulled up an old blog from the Joy Journey and I read. I read about how wonderful it felt to move... and I read the last sentence in the blog: Maybe tomorrow I'll try dancing! Remembering that moving makes me feel AMAZING, I trusted that if I could just get myself to the stereo and get a good groove going, I could move. I could let go. I could release the pain. I could shake it off. I could do something constructive instead of destructive and I could breathe again. I could dance. So dance I did! And after about 40 minutes of eyes-closed, dance-like-nobody's-watching, arm-flailing reckless abandon, I sank to the floor and cried a little more... then a few minutes later I got up and walked away and I felt better. Still sad, but better.

Yesterday I made a decision to move through the pain. I figured the least I could do was follow my own advice, right? And so in my pain today (which is a little less pressing than it was yesterday), I will dance again, I will release more of this tension and shake off more of this hurt. I will continue to hold on to the hope of tapping into my joy again, and I will leave you with these words from Day 27 because I could stand to be reminded of their promise:

I moved along the healing path even while I was afraid. I moved in my fear instead of denying that I was afraid. I kept putting one foot in front of the other and picking myself up when I fell along the way. Each victory helped me release a little bit of my fear, which helped me keep going. The more I moved in my fear, the stronger I got. The stronger I got, the easier it was to move in my fear. Moving in fear instead of staying stuck in fear is what saved my life and brought me to the truth... the truth that joy was a possibility, even for ME.